As someone who has hatched eggs, I question this story. Eggs need oxygen just as much as the next animal does, that is why the shell is permeable. With no umbillical cord connected to mother to deliver oxygen (which mammals get), the chick would suffocate.

Not only that, but hens impacted with eggs don't generally die from 'wounds', but rather infection from having a foreign body wedged in there (which would have happened well before 21 days). Newborn chicks are exhausted and soft when hatched, not something capable of tearing up anything after they are done fighting with the eggshell for hours on end.

"It's easy. You draw a red line on the ground, right? Then you wait for a chicken to come along. When he arrives, he puts his beak right on the line and he's hypnotized!"Joey Santiago

As someone who has hatched eggs, I question this story. Eggs need oxygen just as much as the next animal does, that is why the shell is permeable. With no umbillical cord connected to mother to deliver oxygen (which mammals get), the chick would suffocate.

Not only that, but hens impacted with eggs don't generally die from 'wounds', but rather infection from having a foreign body wedged in there (which would have happened well before 21 days). Newborn chicks are exhausted and soft when hatched, not something capable of tearing up anything after they are done fighting with the eggshell for hours on end.

i am in general agreement with you about the need for oxy etc. and that the chick is too soft to inflict wounds, however i have read that if an egg breaks inside a hen, the egg shell will cause wounds that will kill the hen.

As someone who has hatched eggs, I question this story. Eggs need oxygen just as much as the next animal does, that is why the shell is permeable. With no umbillical cord connected to mother to deliver oxygen (which mammals get), the chick would suffocate.

Not only that, but hens impacted with eggs don't generally die from 'wounds', but rather infection from having a foreign body wedged in there (which would have happened well before 21 days). Newborn chicks are exhausted and soft when hatched, not something capable of tearing up anything after they are done fighting with the eggshell for hours on end.

Well, April Fools was a few weeks ago now .... so, are you suggesting the Chief Vet is ... mistaken?

'Internal wounds' does not necessarily mean the chick attacked the hen internally in any way; internal wounds could have been "wounds of some kind caused by shell, infection/bacteria, perhaps?

I collect eggs each night so we don't have a broody working the nesting boxes. Saturday night I collect eggs and all the boxes were empty. On Sunday when I went to collect eggs, I found that one of our hens laid a chick. There was no shell, just a naked chick curled up in a ball. Judging by what I saw and found on the internet, the chick was probably 14 days into development. Has anyone seen this, other than in the article? I was aghast as I didn't know this was possible.